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Dissipative Phase Transition of Interacting Nonreciprocal Fermions

Rafael D. Soares1,2, Matteo Brunelli2, and Marco Schirò2

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 250403 – Published 26 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/n8xv-kygx

Abstract

While nonreciprocal couplings are ubiquitous in classical systems, their impact on quantum many-body criticality and entanglement remains largely unexplored. Using exact numerical simulations, we study an interacting fermionic chain subject to nonreciprocal gain and loss. We show that the interplay between dissipation and interactions drives a dissipative phase transition, marked by the opening of a many-body gap and a crossover from power law to exponential relaxation. The weakly interacting regime displays nonreciprocal signatures, including nonzero currents and directional charge accumulation reminiscent of the skin effect. Notably, despite this localization, quantum trajectories exhibit volume-law entanglement. Finally, reciprocity is dynamically restored above a critical interaction strength.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 250403– Published 26 June, 2026
  • Received 31 May 2025
  • Revised 16 April 2026
  • Accepted 30 April 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.

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